and even tried his hand at a heroic poem in stately Alexandrine verse.

To the thoughtful minds of that day it seemed clear that the cause of
Sweden's misfortunes was to be found in her loss of a strong manhood, due
to a senseless readiness in adopting enervating foreign customs and to a
fatal relaxation in morals. In 1811 a handful of enthusiastic students,
mostly from Tegnér's native province of Värmland, formed the Gothic Union
(Götiska förbundet) for the purpose of working with united efforts for
the regeneration of the nation. This, they believed, could best be
achieved by reviving the memories of the old Goths, merely another name
for the people of the Saga period, which in turn would help to bring back
the vigorous integrity and dauntless courage of the past. The ancient
sagas must therefore be popularized.

Tegnér, who already in his "Svea" had bewailed the loss of national power
and urged his people to become independent and strong again, joined the
Gothic Union, at the same time expressing his disapproval of a too
pronounced and narrow-minded imitation of old Gothic life and thought.
Erik Gustaf Geijer, the great historian and poet, also a native of
Värmland and in power of mind and loftiness of ideals almost the peer of
Tegnér, published in Iduna, the organ of the Gothic Union, a few poems
that faithfully reproduce the old Northern spirit and in strength and
simplicity stand almost unsurpassed. An extremist in the camp was Per
Henrik Ling, an ardent patriot, who, inspired by Danish and German
Romanticism, would rehabilitate the nation by setting before it in a
series of epics the strong virtues of the past, albeit that these often
appeared in uncouth and brutal forms. For the physical improvement of
his countrymen Ling worked out a scientific system of exercise, and
though his epics were failures, largely because they set up coarse models
for an age that aesthetically had risen superior to them, his system of